we always end here
by Flyaway21
Summary: In the wake of Dean's deal with the crossroad demon, he and Sam make do with what's left. A countdown in final moments.
1. Chapter 1

_"I touch you knowing we weren't born tomorrow,_

_and somehow, each of us will help the other live,_

_and somewhere, each of us must help the other die." _

**-Adrienne Rich**

* * *

Death vanishes when Sam opens his eyes.

He'd been there mere seconds before, whispered something in Sam's ear, the smell of smoke and dirt clouding his thoughts, clouding the air that cocooned the two of them. Don't forget, he warned, once and then again. Don't forget.

Sam opens his eyes and can't remember. Nothing more than the sensation of waking from a bad dream, of something slipping unwilling between his fingers. Lost and gone and vanishing too fast to remember let alone catch hold of its fading coattails. The world around him is quiet, holds its breath.

Sam is alone when he lifts his head to look around, bones strangely stiff and aching in their joints. A sharp pain throbs in the small of his back, drawing his attention like a bull's eye. A new injury that's dug in deep and made itself a home.

Sam is a creature of habit, instincts honed in by a life full of running and surviving so he stills and takes stock.

A cabin that looks vaguely familiar creaks around him. Sharp wind whistles between the roof's timbers. In the corner is a fireplace, nothing more than dying embers. It's bitterly cold and Sam has nothing more than the blanket someone draped across him. The blood burns its way through his vents, feeling brand new. Painful birth.

A half eaten pizza sit on the table amidst scattered weapons. He recognizes his and Dean's guns and knives. Broken glass against the far wall like someone had hurled one of the empty bottles that litter the floor. Sam feels a swift sinking in his gut, dizzy.

The memories return slowly, a small trickle. Ava and Jake, the Yellow-Eyed demon, the ghost town.

Falling and suddenly Dean had been there to catch him.

Dean whose green eyes had darkened with worry.

Dean whose deep voice pitched in panic.

Dean who'd tried not to show how terrified he was and utterly failed.

Dean making promises that Sam hadn't caught, ones that he could never keep.

He'd been dying and now- his fingers shove his shirt up, find the aching place at the small of his back. A thick scar, worn smooth and bone pale.

"Dean." He calls, voice weak, barely anything more than a harsh whisper. "Dean." He tries again, swings his legs over the side of the bed, settles then on the floor, struggles to his feet when the room stops spinning.

Nothing. He stumbles around the room, looking for a cellphone, their hunting log, anything with a date.

Because that is the only explanation. Time must have passed, a lot of time, judging by the fact that he is breathing at all. A coma, maybe. A coma that had lasted so long they'd allowed Dean to take him home.

Sam flinches at the sound of the front door slamming shut. Fast, heavy footsteps eat up the ground between here and there and Sam can't move because there he is. Close enough to touch. Sam only has time to rasp out his name before he is jerked forward into a crushing hug.

Dean warm and alive, who pulls back too fast for Sam's liking, eyes scanning Sam up and down, hands gripping his arms tight enough to leave traces of bruises behind. Undiluted relief and a burning victory. Like he hadn't dared to hope…

It was that more than anything else that brought it all crashing to a sudden halt. And Sam should have known that Dean would do something, that he would owe it to Dean. The floor tilts. Dean keeps him upright. Sam can't find it within himself to pull away.

"How long has it been?" His voice creaks from disuse.

His brother opens his mouth, a lie at the tip of his tongue. Ready to lie for Sam. Nothing he wouldn't do for Sam and at the moment, it sparks a white hot heat inside his chest.

"Dean, what did you do?" He demands, stomach lurching.

Stupid stupid loyal Dean. Sam wants to beat the loyalty out of him. Wants to undo the deal because he can see the awful truth if it in Dean's eyes. Dean whose done something bad, something that put that sad sort of acceptance in his eyes.

A man walking towards the gallows. Lamb led to slaughter.

A bizarre sound escapes from his throat, twisted laughter or a sob. Because this would only happen to them. The universe doesn't give them breaks and Dean did something. Dean did something.

He moves before he even realizes it, swings. Dean doesn't even try to avoid it, doesn't duck, doesn't so much as blink. And when Sam's fist connects, he stumbles back but doesn't make a sound. There is blood on Sam's hands. Dean's blood.

"Oh God." He pants, breath growing more erratic until he's sure his heart is trying to jam its way between his ribs. His knees shake. Dean did something. Just like dad.

Sam stumbles away, ignoring Dean's worried call after him- stupid bastard, his mind chants- and wrenches the door open. The cool air outside helps a little but it isn't a few seconds before Sam bends over and vomits into the grass. Nothing to come up because he's been dead, just a cold corpse for days and days, and his stomach is empty but that doesn't stop it from trying to force its way up his throat. A full moon breaks up the darkness, lets Sam know which way is up and down.

Sam feels like he's about to pass out. Everything is coming too fast and he can't keep up. And there there is a warm palm smoothing over the back of his neck, keeping him bent over. Another clutching onto his shoulder. Sam leans into Dean, body bowed and trembling.

"Tell me you didn't Dean." He's all but begging in a way that Dean could never stand. "Tell me you didn't." It escapes as a sob, enough for Dean to tighten his grip until it's a shade shy of painful. But it helps to ground Sam. A few minutes more and he is able to straighten without the world threatening to throw him back down.

"It's all right Sammy." Dean soothes, still hasn't let go of Sam. Dean's hands are still on him, digging into his skin, as familiar as his own. Dean is looking at him with concern and that is nothing new either.

"We'll fix it." He tells him, promises, holds Dean still so he has to face the burning intention. "Whatever it takes. I'll do it. I can save you still."

Dean doesn't answer. There is a smudge of red on his lip, razor thin cut that Sam put there. "I'll save you." He doesn't realize he's begun chanting it over and over again until the buzzing at the back of his head fades, until Dean's warm calloused hands grasp the side of his neck, bowing it forward, letting Sam bury his face in Dean's neck, inhale his scent.

Dean doesn't believe him but he nods and soothes and agrees anyway. All for Sam. The anger is gone now and all that's left is an empty sort of loss, an aching hole in his chest. He's glad when the shock falls down and numbs him.

Dean with a ticking bomb inside his chest, Dean who looks lighter and happier. Happy despite the smudges beneath his edges and the alcohol on his jacket.

A happy dying man.

Sam starts counting down the days.

An hourglass is turned on its head.

Sand trickles down.


	2. Chapter 2

_"__Don't leave me, even for an hour, because then_

_the little drops of anguish will all run together,_

_the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift_

_into me, choking my lost heart."_

**-Pablo Neruda**

* * *

They take down a werewolf in the mountains of Pennsylvania, Dean like a kid in a candy store the entire time. Sam's never really understood his brother's fascination with certain monsters but he'd just smiled and rolled his eyes, pretended that it was nothing more than a normal hunt.

Sam had been doing a lot of pretending these days.

They spend a week tracking it to the middle of a snow covered forest, no one else around for miles and miles, an utter white void. There was one werewolf and then two and then a whole pack clambering after.

The long days and longer nights gave way to utter exhaustion but then again, that in itself was practically the Winchester job description.

The week exists in brief stints, flashes of heat and ice and blood and frozen earth.

The fire that they huddle near by moonlight to keep from freezing to death.

The pockets full of jerky and candy they run through, chasing sugar rushes.

Sam kind of hopes to die. For a subject of such finality, his thoughts on it are a little fuzzy.

But it's an easy way out. Take it out of his hands, sudden and without goodbyes. Not this stretch of waiting, dragging and then passing far too quickly.

He doesn't die. Dean had tackled him out of the way just in time, the reward for saving his brother's life had been a seeping gash on his side. A single swipe of claws, not deep enough to worry but stubbornly bleeding and refusing to clot. Sam had made quick work of the werewolf after that. Silver bullets and hot red blood melting spots into the snow.

There was a deserted cabin they'd chanced upon a day back. A few miles away that Sam had half dragged, half carried Dean to, both out of breath by the time they stumbled inside.

Sam laid Dean near the fireplace, made quick work of the kindling he'd collected the day before. A small spark of his lighter and Dean had inched closer to the flames, shivering now that the sun had begun its lazy descent.

Sam busied himself, too strung out on adrenaline to feel the cold. He'd collected logs to toss them on the fire, laid out a fresh line of salt against the doors and windows, wrestled Dean out of his now sopping wet jacket, spread out the contents of their first aid kit in neat rows.

"It's just a scratch Sammy." Dean shrugged, fumbling around his pocket with clumsy fingers and making a sound of satisfaction when he pulled out a handful of near frozen gummy worms.

"You need stitches." Sam had grit out, turning his back to Dean, trying to hide his face, trying to ignore the feeling of Dean's blood on his hands.

"Stop being such a wuss and stitch me up before I bleed out." Dean had replied uncaring, mouth stuffed, looking as if he hadn't a care in the world.

Sam took a deep breath and set a needle close to the flames, watched in glow red hot and took it away, splashed a bit of Dean's whiskey on it and stoutly ignored the wounded sound that came when Dean saw those precious drops wasted. The winter air seeped through the holes in the cabin but the fire was roaring when he knelt down.

Sam brought the point of it to Dean's stomach, used his other hand to straighten the flesh. A bead of sweat dipped into his collar. White noise in the background. He pressed forward and drew back, hands trembling. Clenches his hands into a fist and tried again.

"Don't faint on me now." Dean warned, the hint of a bemused smile on his lips.

Sam rocked back on his heels, a sneer found its way onto his face.

"Maybe you should stop and think every once in awhile. Use that thing inside your skull. Or maybe you don't have a brain. God Dean, that would explain so much." It was just the type of thing he had said to Dean a thousand times before. Sibling bickering. And then Dean would swat the back of his head and volley back a clever insult and Sam wouldn't be able to keep from smiling and Dean would laugh and it would be over. That didn't happen.

Dean froze, gummy worm hanging out the side of his mouth, looking all of five years old. Maybe he'd felt the viciousness behind his word, heard how the edge of his voice had been mean instead of teasing.

"What were you thinking?" Sam demanded, taking a twisted sort of pleasure from the flicker of hurt that crossed Dean's face.

And then it was gone and Dean scoffed, a roll of his eyes. "I had it under control."

Sam held his hands up as proof. Blood between his fingers, blood beneath his fingernails. God, it was going to take forever to get off. Sam never hated the color red so much as he had these past few months.

"I'd hate to see out of control. A pine box I guess."

"Only you would be pissed off at me for saving your life. Shit, another two seconds and you would have been-"

"Yeah." Sam breathes out, so close that all he can smell or hear or taste is Dean. His brother surrounding him, that familiar cocoon, but only for a few more months and then- "I would have died."

Dean just sat there, gaping and confused at the sudden sharp turn. Dean who was still bleeding with his hand pressed to his side. He just watched Sam and finally, voice far too gentle, he said, "We're fine Sam. We're alright."

"We're not fine!" Sam's voice rose to a scream. Dean flinched. "We're-you're-" he broke off, feeling traitorous tears prickling the back of his eyes. A silence descended, no sounds other than the fire popping, the stretch of trees outside, the hushed silence of snow falling on the roof, darkening everything. Sam's couldn't find it within himself to look up. He stared resolutely at the his hands, at Dean's blood on those hands. Wished for a lot of things he could never have.

"You have a ways to go Sammy." Dean started, tapping his fingers absentmindedly against his leg, a nervous tick. It was perhaps the worst things Dean had said to Sam. "Actually, I've been meaning to talk to you about that and now seems as good a time as any." He took a deep breath and ignored the warning way Sam's jaw clenched. "Listen, I'm not gonna be here to watch your back and other than Bobby, I don't trust anyone else enough to- well, Bobby's getting old much as he refuses to admit it. I-you should go back to school."

That wasn't what Sam expected at all and the surprise was enough to make him look up. Dean studied him closely, as if he were trying to commit Sam's face to memory. "Become some hotshot lawyer, get that whole white picket fence thing you always wanted." He smiled and then just to add another nail in the coffin, added, "Wish I could see it but you'll be great Sammy. Always have been at pretty much everything you do. It's annoying."

"I should have been faster." Sam says without meaning to. It's been a pressure building up inside him for a year now. Almost a year. A poison building, spreading, left unsaid and Sam can feel it stain his insides dark and ugly. A lifetime of hunter reflexes and Sam hadn't even turned around, hadn't noticed the danger until there was a knife sticking out of his spine.

Sam hears Dean's sharp inhale.

Hears his own and glances down at his hand, at the needle that sticking out of his palm. Holding on too tight. Let go, he tells himself but he can't.

The pain is distracting. Helps him feel like gravity hasn't stopped working, like he's not liable to float off the surface of the earth and be lost. A balloon untethered.

Dean's hand is gentle around Sam's wrist as he unfolds his hand, as he draws the needle out. A bead of blood wells to the surface.

"Take care of Baby." Dean says suddenly. "She needs to be washed and buffed once a week at least. Find a good mechanic cause we both know you're shit under the hood. And please God don't try to pimp her out. She's a natural beauty. If you add so much as a bumper sticker, I swear I'll come back and haunt your ass."

Sam promises. He makes lots of promises that night he doesn't intent to keep. "Whatever you want." He says over and over. And perhaps for the first time, he knows that Dean can't see the lie for what it is.

* * *

The winter melts away and the spring follows on its heals. It turns hot fast that year. One blink and they're in the middle of a thick and sticky summer.

There are two months left in Sam's life.

Two months until the deal comes due, until time runs out, until they come to take Dean away.

Two months and on a night just like tonight, there will be demons and hellhounds and his brother's blood on his hands. His brother's skin split opens wide, eyes unseeing. Gone. Broken in ways he won't be able tot fix.

Sam was never good at hiding things from Dean. He knows it, feels it in the way Dean studies him, can almost hear the cogs in his brother's mind turning, trying to piece apart his expression, extrapolate every flinch, all the tells that no one else in the world would notice.

Just Dean.

Before Cold Oak, Dean would have seen.

But Sam isn't gonna let that happen. Not now. Now when Dean's life and how own hang in the balance. Win one and lose the other and Sam has chosen. Chose the very second that he found out what Dean did. Knew that he was a dead man as soon as he woke up from his long sleep, as soon as the crossroad demon kept her word and thrust him back into his body with little more than a scar covering the small of his back.

The skin there burns hot like it knows.

Sam wants nothing more than to fall on his knees before Dean, to confess it all, spew out his plan, his fear, show Dean the way his hands shake when he thinks about it, the end. Their end.

Death in its finality because they both know there will be no coming back from this.

He wants to scream and rant and break things, wants to loosen the band constricting his chest, wants to feel the fraying edges of his control finally snap.

To demand of God how this is fair.

Wants to find some other way. Any other way.

A world full of a billion people, countless possibilities and their hands are empty. More than anything else, Sam wants to run. That bothers him the most.

Coward, he hears echoing back at him in the dark.

Coward, he thinks when Dean sleeps and he lies awake, staring at the ceiling.

Sam wants to do all this. He doesn't.

The smile on his face manages to fool Dean. That one simple gesture, a spasm of muscle really.

Sand running out.

A smile instead of a scream and Sam wonders if this is what dying feels.


	3. Chapter 3

_"Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. __I am glad to the brink of fear._

_I am nothing; I see all." _

**\- Emerson**

* * *

The months that follow are the beginning of the lasts.

Sam collects them like a dying man collects water. Final moments with Dean. So many of them, all jealously guarded, taken out only at night to replay over and over where no prying eyes can intrude, where all the vulnerability he tries to hide isn't at risk of being exploited.

Last hunts in Kentucky and then Missouri and then Nebraska.

It's an unsaid agreement that they slowly make their way back towards Kansas. Back to the place that hasn't been home to them in most all the years they've been alive. But they'll go there all the same. Because Dean is determined to end it all where it started, even though it's Sam that's been the one who appreciated the irony of coming full circle. Catharsis.

He doesn't anymore.

Dean picks up a girl at a bar, shameless flirt that he is, coy looks and wide smiles and soft touches. Dean strikes out at a bar.

Soon there won't be time. It's a rising chant in Sam's mind, dulling the edges of his perception, the part that he tries to ignore, the one that's becoming more and more difficult to.

He won't see Dean lose it over some girl, one special enough that makes him blind to the rest. Finally settle down, leave the hunting life behind.

Sam won't see Dean's kids. Stubborn brats probably that get away with murder because of green eyes and dimples. He'll never be Uncle Sam. That hurts deep down more than he ever thought it would. Sam hadn't realized just how much he wanted that for Dean, how much he wanted to see it with his own two eyes, until it became reality that he never would.

Life is funny that way. So is death.

Dean wins enough money at pool to keep them holed up in a motel that is clean and warm, a decent part of town for once, with mints on both their pillows that Dean never fails to steal.

Dean loses at pool and washes it down with a bottle of Jack. They sleep in the Impala because all the credit cards are maxed out. Listen to each other breathe.

Dean gets a speeding ticket with something akin to pride.

Dean tinkers beneath the Impala's hood, not even bothering to hide how he's talking to the car. Soothing her when he rubs off a spot of dirt.

Dean flashes his badge of the day, not a trace of uncertainty in his expression. Cops, FBI, CIA, Dean dons them like the kids on the playground do with husband and wife. Playing house.

Dean with shockingly pink skin after he refuses to use the sunblock Sam had bought him, freckles coming out in full force.

Sam's life is nothing more than a countdown, hoarding Dean, never as aware at the passing of time as he is that year. He constantly checks his phone. The watch his wrist has never ticked so loudly. Instead of studying exits like their dad had drilled in their skulls, Sam finds his eyes drawn to the clocks that hang on the walls, the curling pages of calendars.

A future rapidly disappearing and a present that's winding down, so close to being over. Ticking away second by second. Day by day.

The sand is running out, more sinking towards the bottom than what remains on top.

* * *

They stop at a diner, nothing special about it. Full of run down tables, scuffs on the floor, tired waitresses, smell of burnt coffee and grease. Dean flirts with the waitress, natural as breathing, paying no attention to the fact that she's old enough to be his grandmother, salt and pepper hair wrapped in a tight bun. She takes their order with the monotony that comes with years of practice, pen flickering over the pad, a grunt here, a yes there. Dean compliments her shoes, gets an amused huff and smirk for his trouble.

Dean orders a burger and fries and two slices of apple pie. It might be a last meal for anyone else except for the fact that it's Dean's default food.

"There's a silver lining to all this after all Sammy." Dean says, mouth purposefully full just to catch Sam's look of disgust. "Don't have to worry about my metabolism slowing down and getting fat like you always promised I would."

Sam's flinch is barely noticeable. Dean's been saying things like that more and more. Like maybe he needs to give voice to his newfound reality, like making offhand comments and underhanded jokes will help him make sense of it all. Like it'll make things easier to swallow.

Sam manages to school his reaction better each time.

Sam take a moment to collect himself before he looks up and smiles. "Hate to break it to you-" he trailed off and aims a meaningful glance down at Dean's stomach.

Dean laughs and throws a fry at Sam. "Jealousy isn't a good color on you Sammy."

The windows of the diner are open, shadows growing on the far wall, sunset turning the white peeling paint a pale pink. Hours now.

They finish their food in silence.

* * *

Dean chose a motel literally in the middle of nowhere. He pays extra for the room on the end, even more to make sure the one beside them remains unoccupied. The greasy clerk pockets their last fifty with a sneer and some cheap underhanded comment. Sam wants to punch him, spends a few seconds daydreaming about how good it would feel to break his already crooked nose.

Dean just smirks and tosses the key up and down as they make their way through the parking lot, whistling like it's any other night. Like it's not the last night.

It's for Sam's own benefit, he knows but he still can't bring himself to say a word. His lips have been sewn shut just as surely as if threaded through.

His throat is bone dry and his hands haven't stopped shaking since he climbed out from the car. The Impala gleamed in the parking lot and Sam couldn't help but stare as Dean climbed out, watched from the corner of his eye as Dean ran his hand over the hood, a farewell gesture.

The room is a copy to every once that's come before. Questionably stained carpet, bathroom with one light flickering, windows lined with dead bugs. Two beds. Dean takes the one closest to the door. For the last time.

There won't be a need for two soon. Tomorrow. Minutes now, an hour if they're lucky.

That echoing chant. Running out of time. Everything in its last stages, wrapping up. Sand almost gone, nothing more than a thin dusting pulled downwards.

Sam imagines the howl of hellhounds, imagines how sharp the claws must be, how long and jagged the teeth. It helps. His shaking lessens, just enough to keep pretending. Dean tosses his bag on the bed. Skips the beer and goes straight for the whiskey.

When he notices Sam's raised eyebrows, he chuckles. "Plannin on getting drunk off my ass." He takes a chug, eyes watering from the bite of alcohol. "Might help." He offers the bottle to Sam. He doesn't ask who it's suppose to help. Probably the both of them. Leave it up to Dean to be thinking of Sam in a time like this.

Sam sinks onto his own bed, feet planted on the floor, mirroring Dean with his palms pressed against the bed.

Sam knows. This is it. No time left. No hope for anything else, no wishing for miracles or saviors. Just him and Dean like always.

The sandglass in his mind is running empty.

A few more minutes and it'll be gone.


	4. Chapter 4

_"__We're not even two people. Even before we met, we were just these two halves, walking around with big gaping holes in the shape like the other person. And when we found each other, we were finally whole. And then it was as if we couldn't stand being happy so we ripped ourselves in half again." _

-**Sylvia Plath**

* * *

The silence falls between them sudden and thick.

Sam is suffocating, rain pattering against the dirty windows, and has just enough mind left to realize he's begun to make death noises and can't stop. It's still too soon. It'll always be too soon.

When Dean speaks, it only gets worse.

"It's not your fault Sammy. Never was. This was my choice." Forgiveness comes easy to a dying man but then Dean was like that anyway. Too forgiving, especially the times that Sam didn't deserve it.

After a year of burying the truth, of disguising it as grief, the time has finally come. One final unveiling.

Sam swallows. When he speaks, his throat is dry, voice haggard like it hasn't been used for years, "I'm sorry too."

"You don't have anything to be sorry about." Faint whisper, nothing more. Fading, the both of them.

"You'll want to be angry later." Sam goes on like Dean hadn't spoken at all, delicate in the balance between them "You'll want someone to blame. You can blame me. That's ok. Just-just don't blame yourself, okay? Not ever."

Confusion flashes on Dean's face a second before horrified realization takes its place. By then it's too late. One year too late. Sam's been decided ever since he first traced the scar on his back, ever since he wrestled the truth from Dean's eyes. Nothing to do but pay back the debt incurred as an infant carried away from a fire, fixed firmly in his brother's arms.

Sam shoves Dean hard enough to send him sprawling onto the floor of the bathroom, the second of surprise all he needs. Dean is up and scrambling by the time Sam slams the door shut between them, locking it in place. He drags the dresser in front, watches it shakes and tremble back and forth but it stays put.

He lets out a breath, presses his hands flat against the wall that separates them, tries to calm his galloping heartbeat. It's alright, he tells himself over and over, breathes it into existence because he doesn't have the strength for much more.

All he can hear are Dean's fists, Dean's screams, the obvious anger unable to conceal pure panic.

The gun is already loaded. He pulls it from its hiding place beneath the pillow.

"I called Bobby." Sam confesses. Dean has fallen silent but Sam can image his ear pressed against the door, jaw clenched, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood. "I don't want you to be the one- " he takes a deep breath and rubs his hand over his face hard. "Just stay in there for awhile, alright? He should be here soon."

He doesn't glance at the other bed, to where Dean's cell had been taken apart. To where Sam knew dozens of frantic texts and voicemails had been left by Bobby ever since their conversation ended half an hour before. Sam had dialed the familiar number as soon as Dean disappeared into the office. On it, he made his last confession.

The reality of the situation had begun to dawn and by that point, Sam was shaking with fine tremors building beneath his skin. It was a miracle that Bobby could piece together his slurred nonsensical questions riddled with demands.

Will you come get me before Dean does? Don't want him to see me like that. Will you watch over him after? You know how stupid he can be, how stubborn. Will you promise not to let him do anything to bring me back? Shit Bobby, don't let him make another deal. Please, please, please. On and on and on.

And in the background, Bobby spewing curses. Stupid reckless boy. Idjits, the both of them. The sound of his breath breaking into a pant, the sound of keys and a roaring ignition.

"Where are you?" Bobby had demanded, trying to reason Sam past it, trying to stop the inevitable.

Sam had answered that one. State, town, hotel, room number.

Almost gently, Sam had added, "Bobby you're not gonna get here in time. Don't kill yourself trying."

And then he'd hung up because he figured those last words were as good as any. Because he knows that no matter how furious, Bobby was never the kind to deny a dying man his last request, especially if that request was for Dean.

That was over an hour ago. No more time to waste, no more stalling if he wanted to have it done before they could stop him.

Sam cocks the gun and the bullet, _that bullet_, loads in a single ominous click. Such an innocuous sound. A sound he's heard a thousand times before.

There's a letter with Dean's name scrawled across the front, a letter that Sam had written and rewritten a dozen times in the past year. Trying to explain, trying to console, to ask forgiveness. To make Dean understand why he had to do it. Why he couldn't let go, not again. Not when he could stop it.

In the end, Sam hadn't been able to put any of that into words so he had simply written down the truth in all its utter simplicity. That he loved Dean, always would, and that he didn't regret any of it. Not even the last, not even what brought them here.

He lays the letter on the desk, far enough away from the bed that his blood won't reach it. Then he sits.

Dean is begging now but that all falls to the background.

Sam isn't thinking of heaven or hell. He's thought enough about that in the months leading up to this moment. God might have pity. He can hope, but it's a faint buzz at the back of his mind, a mosquito to be swatted away. His own soul stopped counting a long time ago.

Everything pales compared to Dean. It's always been that way between them, something that links them is a little too strong, a little too tight. Burns a little too bright to last.

In the end, in this moment at least, he can't find it within himself to care.

No, Sam isn't thinking as he takes his final breaths. He's remembering. All of it. Snippets of their lives, violent and blood tinged. Heat glittering from the Impala, music turned up too loud, the wind whipping his hair in his face and Dean. Dean always beside him, crooked bad boy smile, dimples peeking out, green eyes shining in the sun. Dean singing off key. Dean stitching Sam back together, low soothing words and soft touches. Dean his brother. His protector. Dean, the last person left in this world that he loves.

The universe hasn't been kind to them. Not Heaven or Hell, angels or demons. But they'd had each other.

Sam starts to cry but it doesn't stop him from pulling the trigger. And then there's no sound at all except for Dean's screams that tear through the door, that turn animalistic in the gaping void, the battering of his fists, now bloody and bruised, the pounding of his own heartbeat as Sam's goes out.

Nothing but deep cutting silence and beyond that, a faint whisper of a sandglass turning over again.


End file.
